One of the perils of being a young-looking 22-year-old actress, as “Beastly” star Vanessa Hudgens has learned, is being offered high school-age roles. Of course, rising to fame in the “High School Musical” franchise might have something to do with that. But Hudgens is looking on the bright side: “It’s a complicated phase in everyone’s life,” she says. “There’s so many different aspects of it to touch on. I mean, honestly, I’ll stay young as long as I can.”
In “Beastly,” she returns to high school as Lindy, the wallflower a cursed former pretty-boy (Alex Pettyfer) woos in order to win her love and break a curse rendering him hard to look at, to put it lightly. Based on the successful young adult novel, it’s a modern retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” from the beast’s point of view. Modernized or not, for Hudgens it meant playing a damsel in distress, something that could still feel outdated. “I think a damsel in distress, no matter how you look at it, is a female in need, you know?” she says. “My character, Lindy, is kind of the girl in the beginning who thinks it’s a lot easier to go through life under the radar, to just kind of lay back rather than stand out. I feel it’s a little saddening because I feel like women are a strong breed and we should stand up.”
With “Beastly” and her next film, “Sucker Punch,” out the same month and “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” due out in September, it’s a busy year for Hudgens. “I feel like taking a break itself is just depriving yourself of your own creativity,” the vacation-averse actress says. “If I did take a break, it’s going to be a trip with my girlfriends to Spain, I think. So I’m trying to figure out where that can fall into this year.”
